0674 | The House of Doctor Dee | Peter Ackroyd
As with all things Ackroyd, this novel suffers from not only an obsession with London now, but, as if that wasn’t ethnocentric enough, London then. Even though it’s been 8…
-
-
0673 | Self-Condemned | Wyndham Lewis
To a certain extent autobiographical, this again, as with The Driver’s Seat, is about someone making their own decisions. This resonated with me as Professor Rene Harding resigns from his…
-
0672 | The Midnight Examiner | William Kotzwinkle
Kotwinkle is probably more famous for writing E.T., not this, and it’s hard to see why this needs to be read by anyone before they die. This is a shame…
-
0671 | Platform | Michel Houellebecq
A very strange novel not least because it must be one of the only novels that takes place in the context of the tourism industry. However, lest that conjure up…
-
0670 | The Violent Bear it Away | Flannery O’Connor
Reads very much like Wharton but with religion as its theme rather than morality. Stark, grim and dark all the way through, a great caution for anyone involved in religion….
-
0669 | The Engineer of Human Souls | Josef Skvorecky
If Iain Sinclair wants to know how to eradicate plot but nevertheless write a novel that is at once funny, poignant, moving, funny, sad and tragic, he should put down…
-
0668 | Dining on Stones | Iain Sinclair
You know you’re in for a rough ride when the book you’re about to read is recommended by the lamentable Will Self. When everything else fails, fall back on doctored…
-
0667 | LaBrava | Elmore Leonard
If you like hard-boiled detective stuff, this is for you. Leonard even throws in a faded 1950s movie star so you get a bit of film noir along the way….
-
0665 | The Goldfinch | Donna Tartt
Some people say this is overlong. I’m not entirely sure I agree. At the pace the novel moves at, I can’t see what might be omitted. What I will state…
-
0664 | City Primeval | Elmore Leonard
I’m writing this a good 11 months after finishing this novel. It was the first Elmore Leonard I’d read and shortly afterwards, I also read LaBrava. The latter has eclipsed…
-
0663 | Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids | Kenzaburo Oe
Very poignant. Very raw. A booked that rocked Japan when published just 13 years after the Japanese surrender in 1945. This is Japan’s Lord of the Flies with important exceptions:…
-
0662 | Paradise of the Blind | Duong Thu Huong
I thought this was going to be really good. It was the first novel translated from Vietnamese to English even though it was only published in 1988. That says a…
-
0661 | The Man Without Qualities | Robert Musil
This unfinished tome of a book is an extremely strange one to experience. Written in a very Magic-Mountain-like way, we find ourselves party to the life of Ulrich, a minor…
-
0660 | The War of the End of the World | Mario Vargas Llosa
A very good long read which has all the intensity of the most roasted Brazilian coffee you can imagine. There’s a lot of conflict here so steer clear if you’re…
-
0659 | Reasons to Live | Amy Hempel
A book of short stories that are very easy to read and very engaging. I would probably read this again if I came across it again. Sadly, I had no…
-
0658 | The Left-Handed Woman | Peter Handke
A strange novel that faded from my memory within a few days of reading it. My third short novel in a row and, like the others, it runs out of…
-
0657 | Miss Lonelyhearts | Nathanael West
A tiny novella which reminded me of The Postman Always Rings Twice or pretty much anything by Raymond Chandler. The protagonist hides behind the pseudonym Miss Lonelyhearts as he writes…
-
0656 | The Pigeon | Patrick Suskind
This is a little slip of a book and quite why it should make the 1001 Books list at all is a mystery to me. There’s nothing wrong with it,…